Day 6 - James 1:6

James 1:6

The Message

Ask boldly, believingly, without a second thought. People who "worry their prayers" are like wind-whipped waves.

New American Standard

But he must ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind.

Someone asked me the other day why I’m doing one verse at a time rather than a chapter etc.  Here’s what I’ve learned.  When we pray to the Lord typically we have our prayer list and we go down through it asking for certain things. Sometimes we take the time to just let our mind be clear and try to listen for God’s answer, sometimes we don’t. My thought is the Bible is how God communicates to us. I can’t tell you how many times I have prayed, and then read a verse or daily devotional and during the day sometime, something happens that reminds me of that verse.  It’s like God speaking to me. When you read a whole chapter, and I certainly wouldn’t be presumptuous enough to think that God couldn’t speak to you through that reading but for me it seems when I take a verse at a time and meditate on it, think about it, maybe look up in another reference what other people have said about it, it means more. It also means that I won’t get through the Bible in a year. I’ll be lucky to get through three of the 66 books in a year but I think it will be worth it. Hopefully you will too.

So this verse today I had to think about awhile. What James is saying here is that there can’t be any doubt that if you ask for it, God will supply the answer. May not be the answer you want or expect but it will be His answer and if you believe that God is only going to allow the things that are in His plan then you shouldn’t be afraid of the answer.  We’ve all prayed for healing for ourselves or someone we know. Sometimes they’re healed, sometimes not. Why? Because it’s part of God’s plan. Then the natural question comes up, well why bother to pray then if God already has His plan? Because there are other verses in the Bible that say “For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.” Matthew 7:8

God is God and it’s His plan. He can change it if he wants to and so He tells us, ask.

Prayer request today is for a good friend of my wife, Lyn, who went blind in one eye from a rare disease. We’re praying for a restoration of sight for her.